1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to an electrical junction assembly for a wiring harness, and more particularly toward a device for coupling one or more branch wires to a main trunk line.
2. Related Art
Automobiles and other vehicular applications, as well as non-vehicular applications, may include numerous electrical components which are energized through a series of discrete wires combined to establish an electrical system. Frequently, wires are grouped and bound together in a wiring harness for convenient installation in assembly operations.
In the case of wiring harnesses for motor vehicle applications, for example, every electrical component must be grounded to a suitable ground connection which is usually associated with the vehicle frame. It is common in automotive wiring harness systems, and in other wiring harness systems for other applications, to provide a single main trunk line which runs to electrical ground, and to provide spliced connections to branch wires which extend to the various electrical components. Thus, each electrical component is in conductive communication with the main trunk line via the branch wires, which in turn is connected to electrical ground. It is common practice to create a splice in the main trunk line so that each of the branch wires can find electrical ground.
Providing a splice in the main trunk line is a labor intensive process. First, a portion of the insulative jacket surrounding an electrically conductive core strand is bared. This is depicted in FIG. 1. Branch wires are routed to the bared portion on the main trunk line and there spliced, or twisted into electrical communication with the conductive core strand of the main trunk line. The spliced connection is then wrapped with tape or, as illustrated in FIG. 1, surrounded with a heat shrink tube material to seal against moisture infiltration, electrical shorts and abrasion. A cable tie or other such fastening mechanism is used to anchor the spliced wiring harness to various locations on a support structure.
A particular problem with this prior art technique can be readily appreciated by reference to FIG. 1. Firstly, the manual effort required to create wire splices in this fashion is discouraging, and therefore assembly line workers will tend to create as few splice connections as possible. This reluctance to create multiple splice locations results in numerous branch wires being routed to the same spliced connection point. In the process, a very substantial quantity of redundant branch wire will be run parallel to the main trunk line until it reaches the point of splicing. This is wasted wire, and adds not only cost but also weight to the wiring harness assembly. In a typical automobile, for instance, hundreds of additional feet of redundant branch wire are used in this fashion. The prior art has proposed numerous techniques for coupling wires to one another, but none have been found to provide the ease of use and reliability needed to couple one or more branch wires to a main trunk line in certain applications, including but not limited to vehicular wiring harness situations. Therefore, there is a long felt yet unmet need within the wiring arts to provide an electrical junction assembly for coupling one or more branch wires to a main trunk line, particularly in ground wire applications.